R: substitue and execution environments - r

Question

I am currently writing a function that will take an equation as an argument. The function will expect variables to be apart of the column names of data.
mydata <- data.frame(x=c(1,2,3,4),y=c(5,6,7,8), z=c(9,10,11,12))
my_function <- function(data, equ) {
EQU.sub <- deparse(substitute(equ))
#Check if colnames are used
for(i in 1:length(colnames(data)) {
if(str_detect(string = EQU.sub, pattern = colnames(data)[i])) {
#if used, create variable with its name.
assign(x = colnames(data)[i],
value = eval(parse(text = paste("data$",
colnames(data),
sep = ""))))
} else {
warning(paste(colnames[i], "was not used in EQU"))
}
}
df$new.value <- eval(equ)
output <- function(new.equ = equ)
return(df)
}
my_function(data = mydata, equ = x+(y^2))
I know what you may be thinking, this is a big workaround for just doing
mydata$x+(mydata$y^2)
THE ISSUE
The issue is that I want to pass my input of equ into an new function.
new_function <- function(new.equ) {
string <- deparse(substitute(new.equ))
#does some stuff....
return(output) }
however, when changing from execution environment of my_function to new_function, calling deparse(substitute(equ)) returns "equ" instead of "x+(y^2)"
I know that the function substitute returns what was explicitly assigned to the variable. (equ) but I am wondering if there is a way for new_function() to be able to see into the execution environment of my_function() so I can get the desired output of "x+(y^2)"
UPDATE
After thinking about it, I could change what I pass to new.equ to the deparsed version of equ as follows...
output <- function(new.equ = EQU.sub)
new_function <- function(new.equ) {
#given that these variables are available
value <- parse(text = new.equ)
#does some stuff....
return(output) }
but my original question still stands because I'm still new to R environments. Is there a more elegant way to go through execution environments?

Answer 1

Using non-standard evaulation like this can be pretty messy. Rather than trying to capture expressions from promises passed to functions, it's much safer just to pass a formula. For example
mydata <- data.frame(x=c(1,2,3,4),y=c(5,6,7,8), z=c(9,10,11,12))
my_function <- function(data, equ) {
stopifnot(inherits(equ, "formula"))
eval(equ[[2]], data)
}
new_function <- function(newequ) {
my_function(mydata, newequ)
}
my_function(mydata, ~x+(y^2))
new_function(~x+(y^2))
Or give your function an extra parameter where you can pass an expression instead so you don't have to rely on a promise. This makes it much easier to write other functions that can call your function.
my_function <- function(data, equ, .equ=substitute(equ)) {
eval(.equ, data)
}
new_function <- function(newequ) {
equ <- substitute(newequ)
my_function(mydata, .equ=equ)
}
my_function(mydata, x+(y^2))
new_function(x+(y^2))
my_function(mydata, .equ=quote(x+(y^2)))